Masai Mara (7): Maasai Dances (Men)

As we move on into the relations between the men and the women of the manyatta, perhaps this from a recent books I read will help:

“As Maasai society is polygamous, an elder can take as many wives as he can afford and father as many children as possible. Conventionally, a Maasai man of the active Ilmoran (warrior) age-set is forbidden from marrying or starting his own manyatta until the next ilmoran generation is initiative, when he and his peers – typically in their early to mid-30s – become junior elders, the group responsible for political and legislative decisions. Women, by contrast, are usually married off in their teenage years, leading to a large age discrepancy between a man and his wives.”

So I was a little misinformed when I was trying to describe the lives that Tomas and his brothers and half-brothers live. Now I understand a little better, especially since Tomas was so good about explaining what we would see when the men and women would come to “dance for you,” as he put it.

It was, needless to say, different from any other dancing I’ve ever seen and yet, it had such typical connections with the dancing we expect from men and women, especially in terms of their usual roles. For example, in this series of photographs (look in Mr. Guy’s Masai Mara (7) Album) I am taken by how athletic and energetic the men’s movement is, almost as if we were watching one of the sort of “competition” men’s dances at the New York City Ballet. It’s very rough, very raw, and full of athletic prowess.

Charles and I weren’t even asked if we wanted to don the shukas. They were just draped over us as the dance was about to begin. The music is mostly sung, although that great horn we’re holding is used later (as you’ll see) by one of the “brothers” while the others dance. 

The music is more of a rhythmic chanting, but punctuated with heavy grunts and smacking sounds, and, yes, there is a sort of story to the dance.

As Tomas tells it, the dance represents the athletic strength of the young men (well, I suppose a little older than that, if the above quoted information is correct and the men are looking to marry). The dance is shaped to demonstrate that the men are strong enough to marry up with a girl of a nearby village (not manyatta) and the idea is that the man who can jump the highest is the most eligible of young men. Not sure about all this, but that’s how it was explained to Charles and me.

Masai Mara (6): Maasai Fire w/ Sticks

One of our most intriguing findings, in visiting the Maasai and getting to know them through Tomas, is just how little they depend on things that are purchased. They do all their own medicine, as we all know, and hearing Tomas describe some of the ways they use herbs and leaves and bark and such is an amazing learning experience. And one that puts the modern Westerner a little in awe of the abilities that these people have, all crafts and skills passed down from generation to generation.

And quite naturally giving us pause when we think about how with our modern knowledge management techniques we presume we can help contribute to this particular type of knowledge sharing. I’m not so sure we can. We’re very good at capturing and sharing knowledge about what we’ve been dealing with ourselves, as a culture for some centuries. But can we capture and manage what these people know? Perhaps Prusak and Davenport are right: you can’t manage knowledge – certainly not this kind of knowledge – but you can work with knowledge, their definition of knowledge management.

As we arrived at the manyatta, even before Tomas had explained to me about the wooden stickfence, he pulled off a few leaves from a shrub and handed it to me.

“Sandpaper,” he said.

I was a little confused, but it soon became clear to me how important this particular bush is. Its leaf does indeed feel like a sheet of medium-to-fine sandpaper. As we visited the manyatta, he pointed out to me quite a few situations in which the sandpaper leaf is used to make the wood smooth, the most obvious being the beautiful wooden sticks every Maasai man uses and walks with. 

Young or old, boy or man, it doesn’t matter. No Maasai man walks along without his stick, and they are beautifully rubbed to be as smooth as they can be. 

The most spectacular use of the sandpaper leaf has to be in preparing the sticks for making fire. We all heard about this when we were in the Boy Scouts, but I’m not sure any of it ever made sense, or even caught on. But these guys have it down to a fine art. They don’t bother with matches. It’s pure elbow (or hand-rubbing) grease. The trick is to gauge out a little hole in one stick, and then you trim a long smooth stick, specially chosen and carefully cut to match the hold, and the spin the long stick round and round as fast as you can, using the flat of your hands held together. It’s hard work, and often three or four or more men will be used to get it going but, as you can see in Mr. Guy’s Masai Mara (6) Album, you do soon start to smell smoke and pretty soon a little puff of smoke drifts up and then there’s more and lo and behold! There’s your little red coal which you can then use with the tender twigs to get a bigger fire going. Amazing.

Masai Mara (5): Maasai Manyatta

We had seen many of these family compounds, known in Maasai as a manyatta, as we drove around the Maasai countryside, both on this safari and when we had returned from Kisii some weeks back. They are not villages, as such. Instead they are compounds where the extended family of one man lives. Let me try to explain (I’m not sure I can).

The whole situation centers on the man, and I have been led to believe the situation Tomas shared with us (when I described it to others) is fairly typical. His manyatta, which we see here from a distance, is a compound of houses created by his grandfather, for his six wives and their children. Tomas is one of the children of one of the grandfather’s sons, and his father lives in the compound with his three wives and their children. Each wife has her own dwelling (which the women build, using heavy sticks and cow dung but unlike the houses we saw in Nyanguru Village in Kisii, these houses are not covered over with dried mud, to provide a baked-on plaster-type of finish). As you can see in the photographs in Mr. Guy’s Masai Mara (5) Album, these houses are pretty raw. The structure of the manyatta is circular, with an outside fence made up of sticks and branches and dried leaves, about six or seven feet in height, and it is there to keep the lions away from the cows (we were told). There is one narrow entrance – about three feet wide – and it is covered by a separate gathering of branches and twigs, put in place when the people of the family retire for the night.

The cows? Yes, they are driven home each night, from wherever it is they are grazing, and they come to the center of the manyatta. In some manyattas, there is also an enclosed circular space in the center for the cows, but in Tomas’s manyatta, there is no enclosure. The cows are just brought in and wander about in the space inside the circle of the fence and the dwellings.

Many children were about and, as usual, I was fascinated by them, but unlike other African children I have met, these had nothing to do with Charles and me (although they kept an eye on us all the time! – they weren’t quite sure what we were up to). We weren’t invited to speak with them, or pay much attention to them, and it seemed to me that they liked it that way.

Although I felt a little as if doing so would invade the families’ privacy, Tomas kept inviting me to take pictures, assuring me that we were welcome to take as many photographs as we liked. And with all the colors of the shukas and the other beautiful garments the people were wearing, it was a wonderful photo opportunity, and I had a good time. And learned a lot, and now I know, for example, why most shukas are bright red, or some version of it. Wildlife are uncomfortable with the color red (associating it with fire, perhaps?) and one wears red in the forest to keep the animals away. It was a fact we discovered ourselves one morning, when we unexpectedly found ourselves nearing a herd of elephants. Tomas and I, standing in the van with the top open in the cool morning air, had wrapped ourselves in shukas and as we got even not very close, the elephants started moving away. Tomas surmised it wasn’t the van – which elephants see all the time – but the bright red fabric we were wrapped in. Could be.

As for the residents of the manyatta, I had a hard time getting my arms around all the relations, but apparently Tomas and his brothers whom we met and interacted with – a little too old to live in their parents’ house as they have already been through their initiation and “warrior” period (which I’ll try to explain later) – are among 26 siblings of their father and three different mothers. All told, some 120+ people live in the manyatta, all descended from (or connected with, I suppose) Tomas’s grandfather.

As for family life, here’s the picture I get: the men concentrate on hunting. 

They use only spears and knives, and in the course of our time together, Tomas invited us to go on a nature walk. When asked what our protection would be, should we come across any wildlife, he assured us that his spear and his knife would be all that was needed, and he was quite proud of the fact that he had had his four years in the bush, and he would be able to protect us. Charles and I declined the nature walk, with great respect.

So the men concentrate on hunting and tending the cows (the Maasai don’t say “cattle” when they speak English), sometimes going far away during certain seasons of the year. The boys tend the cows (and goats and sheep) closer to home and, as I’ve noted, drive the cows home every evening, to be enclosed within the manyatta.

The open field in the center of the manyatta is used for the young men’s initiation rite, in which the grandfather supervises their circumcision in the open area (I presume it is at a time when the cows are not there). There is an important stake in the ground where the grandfather stands, and all the ceremonies take place in front of him, with all the residents of the manyatta present. The boys are then given their spear and knife and sent to the bush, where they live for four years, learning how to take care of themselves and each other (they usually go in small groups, sometimes as few as two, but never alone).

It was after telling us this that Tomas invited us to enter the house. I was a little frightened, not the least because I had to cross over the wet muddy field where the cows come in each night and I had the distinct impression that what I was walking through was not just mud (and in fact as you can see in one photograph, Tomas extended his hand to help me when we left the house, as it is very easy for a muzungu to slip and fall in the much, apparently happening often!).

Inside the house, it was pitch black (we used the flash – at Tomas’s suggestion – to take the pictures) but we inched our way through, into a small room, probably six feet by six feet. This was the main room, with cooking apparatus and a hard wooden bench on which I was invited to sit, as it was the seat of honor. This seat of honor is also the bed for the parents. In a tiny room off to the side was where the children sleep, and in an even smaller tiny room, a long enclosure for the “baby cows” (the Maasai don’t say “calves”). Altogether, eleven people sleep in this tiny space.

As I said, Tomas and his adult brothers (some shown here, and many in the outdoor photos) live elsewhere, but I was never told where. They are all looking to marry, but they must each collect a dowry of at least ten cows plus another ten to indicate their developing wealth and since Tomas – in his mid twenties – doesn’t yet have these resources, he and his brothers in the same situation must wait.

And on the other delicate subject that was raised, quite openly and not by me or Charles? Impregnating a girlfriend isn’t really a problem because she has the baby and when she is married the baby comes along as part of her family. Say, what? This was a little hard to deal with, coming up as spontaneously as it did, but I got the picture.

As we prepared to leave the house, Tomas proudly found the lion head he wears for ceremonial occasions. He killed the lion when he was a warrior (I don’t think that is quite the right word but it’s what the Maasai use to describe the young men living in the bush), and it, along with his initiation ceremony, is proof of his manhood. He and all his brothers have – or aspire to – the status of manhood to define them as they move into their lives as adults.

Masai Mara (4): Sopa Lodge

In a game reserve as large as Masai Mara, it’s not surprising that there are quite a number of places to sleep. Several lodges – mostly high end – make the safari experience a particularly pleasant one and, as noted earlier, it’s nice to have the lodge staff willing to prepare a packed breakfast for an early morning game drive. I also hear that some lodges prepare picnic lunches for guests, but as I was not planning to be out in the middle of the day, it was not something I looked into.

There are less expensive places as well, so having a safari in the Masai Mara Game Reserve does not have to be a budget-breaking experience. And for those intrepid souls who want to sleep out in Africa, there are sign-posted campgrounds (some noted as having “limited facilities” and some even stating “no facilities”) but the idea of sleeping so close to the wildlife just didn’t have enough appeal to me, so I did not investigate the campsites. Even in the lodges it isn’t unusual to see signs recommending that guests avoid wandering off the blocked off paths and – so I’ve been told – there are even some lodges must be accompanied to their cottages by a lodge employee (whether the employee is armed or not is a question I did not bring up). And at the Sopa Lodge, for those of us departing on an early game drive – leaving a little before dawn – each of us was met by a uniformed employee to walk us to reception, to pick up our packed breakfasts and meet our drivers.

The staff at the Sopa Lodge (it is a chain of several, 

in both Kenya and Tanzania) is famous for its friendliness, but I honestly don’t see it as any different from any other Kenyan people I’ve come in contact with. But the name fits (“sopa” means “how are you?” or “hello” in the Maasai tribal language), and as you can see from this photograph, in addition to the friendliness of the staff, another pleasing characteristic of Sopa Lodge is the spectacular view. Spread out over a handsome ledge in the mountainside, you can see for miles, and as shown in Mr. Guy’s Masai Mara (4) Album, it’s a very pleasant resort indeed. The entrance is on several levels, with guests entering from the top and walking down a nice flight of stairs to reception, where they are greeted with hot towels “to wash the dust of the road away” – a gesture that couldn’t have been more appreciated. And the views in the album that seem to be from someone’s porch? That’s right. That’s what I saw from my door as I went out each time.

From the main entrance, the stairs lead down to the main lobby, the bar, and the very elegant glassed-in dining room, in front of which the monkeys put on quite a show (or at least they did the one morning I had breakfast in the dining room). They’re forbidden of course but they make their way up to the glass and when I saw one server step out on the stairs to throw something and them and make them scurry away (there must have been thirty of them), they all dashed into the trees and the next thing you knew they were throwing things back at him! And they are determined little devils, even having figured out how to get under the overhanging eaves outside the dining room and make their way into the rafters inside. Quite a lively scene, I can tell you!

The main entrance has the two lovely mosaic-type art works to greet visitors, and all the public rooms and even the cottages have very nice African art in them. The décor is not surprisingly African rustic, with much of the furniture made of smoothed over rough-cut wood and the upholstered furniture using great sections of the Maasai shuka as cushion and other fabric areas.

One of the great attractions of the Sopa Lodge was the availability of Maasai guides. Charles had expected we would have local guides, and indeed while I was resting after our journey he came upon Tomas waiting at the gate to the lodge, offering his services. Having experienced the rangers as guides in the national parks and local citizens as guides in other reserves, I was surprised at how little Tomas was offering to charge to be our guide. Needless to say, at his remarkably low price, we hired him on immediately (that’s his photo in the album). He speaks English very well and, indeed, his name was given to him by his English schoolteacher when he was a boy.

His first suggestion – although he was very delicate about it, as he did not want to appear to be forcing us – was to invite us to his “village,” as he put it. In fact, he was inviting us to his manyatta, they typical family compound where the Maasai people live, and although several manyattas – very spread out – might make up something like what Westerners think of as a “village,” what Tomas was offering was a look at life as it is lived in the Maasai countryside. We asked if there would be a charge and he said that would be up to us, as it would not be part of the guide fee. We suggested an amount and he seemed pleased, for as it turned out both our contribution to see the Maasai manyatta and his fee were not for him, but – as with all financial resources coming into the family – were to be contributed to a common fund for the manyatta.

Now with Tomas prepared to lead us into the afternoon, we took him up on his offer to visit his manyatta, after which we would have our first game drive in the reserve, to see what we could see before nightfall. 

Masai Mara (3): The Game Reserve and Views

Probably the most famous and, as some say, arguably the best of Kenya’s national parks and game reserves, the Masai Mara Game Reserve is famous for both the views and the animals (I’ll try to describe the latter in future – probably several future – posts). It’s a great combination of features, with much open grassland and, since there has been so much rain in the past few months, the grass when I went to Masai Mara was especially high – hiding of course all sorts of things and beasts that don’t have to be exposed because the grass is short.

Indeed, the high grass provoked much fear in Charles and me at one point, as we grappled with the one truly stupid thing we saw on the trip.

In Africa, on safari and especially on game drives and when there is wildlife about, one never NEVER gets out of one’s vehicle. It’s just too dangerous, and the animals don’t know what to make of it. If you want a closer look, you look out of the vehicle or, in my case for this safari (and which many people do), you stand up and look out the roof of the van. But you don’t get out.

As we were moving along on one of our game drives, there were very few other vans and vehicles about, but up in front of us, about three-quarters of a mile away, we saw a van stop and three young men jumped out, obviously in a hurry to respond to the call of nature, as it’s delicately put in some circles. They did what they had to do and got back in the van, and drove away. We were not close enough to say anything, and it would have been inappropriate anyway (although when we saw this happen on another occasion – at Lake Nakuru National Park – our guide was a ranger and she make it clear to the offending tourist that he would be arrested if she saw him attempt to leave his vehicle again – and he hadn’t even got out but had only opened the door as if he were going to alight from his vehicle), but what we saw was frightening. These fellows were taking a chance, for with the grass so high, certainly hyenas and jackals could be there waiting to attack and even big guys like the cats could be well hidden. Stupid move.

Back to Masai Mara. The game reserve is big, some 1,510-sq-km (583-sq-mile) of it, and in addition to grassland, there are rocky hills, massive woodlands and forests, and simply beautiful views from just about anywhere. I’ve tried to capture a variety of views, shown here in Mr. Guy’s Masai Mara (3) Album – there is no (2) - and I hope readers get an idea of the genuine glory of this beautiful place. I’m particularly taken – as is evident from these photographs – with the sky, and how different in looks in parts of the Masai Mara. I love the different cloud formations, and it is at a time like this that I’m sorry I’m not a scientist. It would be good to have some of the scientific background for all this beauty. But then it might spoil the emotional pleasure, I suppose.

Game drives are a remarkable activity. When on a safari such as this, while there are campgrounds, with very limited facilities it seems. And I have no idea what kind of security one has sleeping in a tent on the edge of the jungle but since I don’t plan to be doing it, I won’t give it too much thought.

Depending on one’s relationship with one’s driver (or if one is part of a package deal in which a group of tourists will be going out together), the game drive is simply that, and nothing more: an opportunity to go out into the game preserve and observe the wildlife in their natural habitat. And with so much variety in the habitat, one never has any idea what will be seen. Of course people get their hopes up, especially wanting to see the so-called “big five” (African buffalo, African bush elephant, Leopard, Lion, and Rhino – all habitats, by the way, of Masai Mara Game Reserve), and there are so many other varieties of animals that it’s almost impossible not to see something. But there are no guarantees with respect to a game drive, and all sorts of conditions can affect what one sees.

Weather, for one, affects whether the wildlife will be out where it can be seen. Also the time of day is important. Most animals – especially predators – have had their chase and their fill by the middle of the day, and when it is too hot, that’s when they rest, sometimes going into as deep a sleep as they would at their normal sleeping times. Other animals, of course, are nocturnal so you’re not going to see them anyway unless you get up very early.

For me, the best method is just to plan a few game drives, at different parts of the day. I’m an early person anyway, so I’ve had pretty good luck going out about 6.00 or 6.30 am (most fairly nice lodges will prepare a packed breakfast to eat on the drive, since breakfast isn’t often served that early in the lodge). On this safari, I did that on two days. I’ve found the morning game drives to be the best, and you can schedule them for as long as you like (mine usually go about 3 to 3 ½ hours, and I get to see a lot). For late afternoon drives, we usually begin about 3.30 or 4.00 pm and stay out until dark (most lodges don’t serve dinner until 7.30 or so, sometimes even later).

Masai Mara is very famous as being the center of the famous “Great Migration,” when hundreds of thousands of grazing move from the Serengeti up through Kenya to follow the rains and the good grass. It’s said to be one of the most spectacular wildlife spectacles in the world, and I’ve seen films of it, and the Great Migration usually runs from mid-July to early September, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to return to Masai Mara this year. It would be a shame to miss it, but one can only absorb so much safari travel.

Masai Mara (2): A Kenya Police Story (With a Happy Ending)

But before we get to Masai Mara, a story about a Kenya traveler experience. Don’t know if it’s typical, but it provided much entertainment during the journey from Nairobi to Masai Mara.

Caution. Caution. Caution.

Always be on guard.

Life is different in Kenya, life is very hard, and there are bad people about. The schemes and crooked-ness that people have come up with in order to part one from his or her money (even in “normal” business situations, for heaven’s sake!) leave the visitor with the impression that one is almost never safe.

And remember, for many in Kenya, the operable construct is “Muzungu = Rich.”

There’s nothing you can do about it, and if you’re muzungu - originally meaning European but now referring to any “white man” (or woman) – you just learn to live with it. It’s expected that you are rich and always have lots of money on you.

So one has to be careful, and when there are situations that are unusual, combined with the (not to put too fine a point on it) general lax attitudes of anyone in a law enforcement role, the necessity to give a “little something” to have the most basic action take place, and the general security situation that can be pretty unstable, one has to be on guard all the time. And, yes, there are those stories: the awful murders and robberies and situations like, for example, a roadway accident - of which there are many – and you just keep going, for if you stop to help your own life will be in danger, as has been proven many, many times over.

So a basic rule of travel in Kenya is: Watch out! Do not let anyone talk you into anything. Do not – under any circumstances – allow anyone to travel with you.

Enter Benson, my and Charles’s private police officer. On our way to Masai Mara, we had stopped for breakfast about two hours after leaving Nairobi. Narok is a town which is the much-anticipated turning-off point for the rest of the journey to Masai Mara, and the popular place to stop for fuel up and have a meal before you tackle the final two-thirds of the journey.

And here comes Benson.

Handsome, tall, ordinary civilian clothes, about 25-28 years old, Benson approaches us as we are getting out of the van to go into the restaurant.

Benson is a police officer, he says. He is stationed at the Masai Mara barracks, he has been up in Narok since early yesterday, he cannot get transportation back to Masai Mara, and now he is kind of desperate to find someone to let him ride with them. He’s apparently been trying since late the night before. Could he please ride with us? He reaches into his pocket for his wallet, and although there are plenty of people around and it’s broad daylight, when he reaches into his pocket Charles and I both sort of instinctively step away.

But it’s just his wallet, and from it he pulls out his laminated police identification, and assures us he is legit.

What to do?

We leave Benson waiting while we go into the restaurant – a fine outdoor garden that is a very pleasant place for breakfast and a deep discussion.

And boy, do we discuss!

Should we? Shouldn’t we? What if he’s not legit? What if he has a group of people waiting for us down the road? What if he’s carrying a gun (we had asked him if he was armed and he assured us he was not)? If there’s a gun in his duffle bag, how do we keep him separated from the duffle bag? (That one wasn’t so tough: we would just put his bag in the rear of the van, with our own luggage.)

Finally, Charles hit upon the solution: it’s a few kilometers out of the way, but there was a police roadblock not too far along the highway, a little beyond where we were turning off the highway, and we would just take Benson there and have him checked out.

Which is exactly what we did. The policeman who looked at his identification indicated that Benson is indeed a real policeman, praised Charles and me for coming to ask him, and we went on our way, turning back to get to the turn-off from the highway onto the road – such as it was! – to take us to Masai Mara. Once there (long, long bumpy trip), as we approached the gate, other policemen and guards recognized Benson, were very happy to see him (apparently it’s a big deal to go away from the police barracks for precisely this reason, because it’s so hard to get transport back), and after we took care of the bureaucratic details of getting into the game reserve (and paying the enormous admission fees!), we entered and took Benson straight to his camp, better for the experience because he had provided us with good conversation, interesting stories, and, best of all, much insight about dealing with the many details for successful game drives in Masai Mara.

Masai Mara (1): Beginning A Very Special Safari Experience

One of the pleasures of life in Africa is the nearness of nature and the great beauty of nature, as one of my early guides described living in Kenya. You just can’t help being so thankful to be here and experience all this beauty and sometimes it’s almost a spiritual or philosophical experience.

As readers of these posts know, I’m doing my best to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I’ve not been reluctant to go off on safari. I’ve had several private safari experiences (and I’ve  even learned to say “Safiri Salama” when I’ve met up with other travelers and we part, wishing one another “safe travels”).

All my safari activities have been arranged by the wonderful Charles, my driver, and by now he is probably my best friend in Africa. When I think what he has led me to and the experiences and adventures that I’ve had through his good efforts, I’m am very humbled. And very thankful. I could never have had this African adventure with my Charles.

Masai Mara was, in many ways, a grand (and planned-for and thus expected) climax to this phase of Mr. Guy’s  Mafrika time (I will be returning for more work – and more adventures – later in the year). We knew that it would be a big trip, for the drive to Masai Mara is just over five hours (and we’re very thankful to the new highway to Narok, which apparently has cut some three hours off the journey), and we took the decision to have two nights in the Masai Mara Game Reserve. It was a smart move, for it enabled us to have four very rewarding game drives, one the afternoon we arrived, two the next day, and one the morning before our journey back to Nairobi.

We used a four-wheel van for the safari, probably for a couple of reasons. First, as you’ll learn below, the FWV is not a choice if one is travelling into an area like Masai Mara. Secondly (and perhaps it was a little extravagant of one making a safari along) most of the vans open up, as you see in this photograph, and I would be able to stand and see everything I wanted to see. And, once I had my guide, would have him standing with me, to point out things I might otherwise miss.

For most of the trip to the game reserve, of course, we did not have a guide and I sat in the cab of the van, with Charles, where we continued with our many-faceted conversations, just as we always do when he is driving me.

And before I get much further into the tale, it’s important I think to make yet another reference to the roads, for Kenya has been fighting the battle of overland transportation now for several decades (I might have made some reference to the Kenya roads in the past). And with the influx of cheap used cars from Japan beginning in the 1980s, the old dirt roads just could not support the abundance of automobiles. So there has been progress, and once the Kenyan economy (especially around the four cities) began to pick up, suddenly people were buying new cars – in addition to all those four-wheel vehicles the expatriate community had been using for years – almost forcing the authorities to put resources into the highways. The job isn’t done yet – won’t be for a long time – but with the influx of Chinese funding and engineering labor for supporting the work and designing the roads, combined with the massive labor force here in the country ready and anxious to work – the highway situation is definitely improving.

Until you turn off the highway.

Now it’s a totally different experience (and I’ve experienced it – a little – on some of my other excursions). And if you take a look at the photos in Mr. Guy’s Masai Mara (1) Album, you’ll see some examples of what it’s like as one tries to maneuver beyond the hard surfaced roads. Fortunately, when a driver is as expert as Mr. Charles, most of the major potholes are avoided, and with his sharp eye Charles is able to discern quickly where the road is so rough drivers have cut a separate trail along another path (often parallel to the “real” road), simply because it becomes almost impossible to travel on the real road. The photographs demonstrate both the public road, on which one travels to Masai Mara, and the many roads and trails and tracks within the game reserve itself. And in many cases, since you’re in a 4WD, you can just cut across the high grass, but you try to keep to paths that have at least been opened up by someone else. A virgin drive through the grass can lead to some interesting – and rather delicate – encounters.

And as the photos show, all of the impediments to moving swiftly along the road are not just nature being disturbed. This is Maasai country, and Maasai wealth is counted in cows (as I’ll describe later) and when the cows are being driven back into the Maasai manyatta, the compound in which the Maasai family lives with their cattle, they have to cross the road. So you just wait.